“McLaren was a bit quicker than everyone else in the dry,” said Alonso after qualifying. “So I expect a strong race from them tomorrow.”

The start

As happened on F1’s last visit to the Hockenheimring, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel share the front row of the grid. But this time it’s Alonso on pole position.

Last time Vettel swerved across the track to keep Alonso behind – and in doing so let Felipe Massa through into the lead. As we saw at Silverstone, Alonso has no qualms about using such tactics, and Vettel can expect immediate attention from the Ferrari if he makes a better start.

Hockenheim has an unusual first corner with a vast tarmac run-off on the outside which drivers often use to gain an advantage. Massa did so at the start in 2010 and escaped attention from the stewards.

From a standing start turn one is taken flat-out – the drivers don’t get on the brakes until turn two, and the jostling for position usually continues on up to the Spitzkehre hairpin and beyond on the first lap.

If lap two begins and Alonso isn’t leading it’ll be a first – he hasn’t lost a place on the first lap all year. But Michael Schumacher, who starts third, hasn’t gained a place in the last four races.

The start is especially important for those needing to make progress from lowly grid positions. Keep an eye on Lewis Hamilton and, much further back, Romain Grosjean and Nico Rosberg.

Strategy

After two days punctuated with occasional, sharp showers, tomorrow is expected to be dry and warm. Track temperatures peaked at 29C in final practice but should be even warmer than that tomorrow.

The limited dry running will mean teams have to feel their way with strategy a bit. “Not all of us have done runs on heavy fuel,” said Sebastian Vettel. “I think the McLarens did but I don’t think Ferrari and us did this morning, so we will see, but it shouldn’t be a big problem.”

Lewis Hamilton indicated that, despite McLaren’s poor qualifying, they could be in a strong position for the race: “We?óÔé¼Ôäóre in a better position for tomorrow: although we?óÔé¼Ôäóre not starting from the best positions, our car certainly looks better in the dry and, with dry weather predicted tomorrow, I definitely think we can have a good race.

“On Sunday, I plan to hunt everyone down from behind. The great thing at Hockenheim is the great big DRS zone along the back straight ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ so hopefully Jenson [Button] and I will be doing lots of overtaking there tomorrow.”

Another feature of practice was that the soft tyre seemed to offer little of a performance advantage over the medium. This will most likely lead teams towards starting on the soft and attempting to run the race with two stops for medium tyres. Because Q3 took place in wet conditions, all the drivers have a free choice of tyres for the start of the race.

If the pace Raikkonen showed in Q1 is for real and isnt a fluke. He can certainly win this one. He is in a better position than he was in Bahrain at the start of the race. Other than that Hockenheim is more overtaking friendly than Bahrain.

I don’t think Hockenheim is better for overtaking than Bahrain. Bahrain has a loong straigth line (start/finish line) plus another two straight lines, smaller, but good for overtaking. Hockenheim has one “straight” line, where is hard to overtake somebody if he will take the interior…

They added the DRS zone into the hairpin so that should makes things easier.

As others have said if the Q1 pace of Raikkonen is legitimate he could win the race. His lap was fast than others attempting to do the same on the soft tires. If it rains he is probably going to go backward, his pace in Q3 was shockingly bad.

Nothing, really. I preferred to mention a single McLaren name and chose the one on the higher grid position. Some people are really touchy aren’t they….

Anyways RÃ¤ikkÃ¶nen mentioned he would get the pole “rather easily” if it wasn’t for the rain, and Lotus mentioned on Twitter they expect, so to speak, RÃ¤ikÃ¶nnen to be on the podium. They are quite confident, so yeah, maybe they’re that good.

To say Button has been “embarassingly slower” than Hamilton all season is a gross overstatement.

Australia: Button was much faster and won the race convincingly.
Malaysia: Button was at least matched with Hamilton on pace and ahead of him after the first pit stop until he shunted Karthikeyan and took his front wing off.
China: Faster and finished ahead of Hamilton again
Bahrain: Slightly slower, lost out badly during the first lap of the race after qualifying right behind Hamilton and was eventually forced to retire with a broken exhaust.

After this Button had by far his worst run of form this season and also his worst form in the last 4 years at least:

Barcelona: Qualified 11th after being fastest in P2 whilst Hamilton qualified on pole then got relegated to last place for being underfuelled. Finished behind Hamilton despite starting 14 places ahead in the race.

Monaco: Qualified a lowly 13th after being fastest in P2 again whilst Hamilton qualified in P4. Finished in 16th after getting crowded out at turn 1 and stuck behind Kovalainen for his entire race.

Canada: Qualified 10th to Hamilton’s 2nd place after being way slower than Hamilton in all practice sessions. No pace in the race and massive tyre degradation, eventually finishing over a lap down to race winner Hamilton. It’s safe to say that Button was actually embarassingly slower than Hamilton at this race.

Europe and Silverstone: A return to some semblance of form for Button. Faster than Hamilton in all three practice sessions at Valencia but flopped in Qualifying where it counts. Unlucky safety car timing during the race heavily compromised his strategy.

Unlucky to be faced with yellow flags in the final sector of his last lap in qualifying at Silverstone where he was ~2s up on previous best after pitting for a new set of inters and set to go fastest in Q1 after struggling with tyre warmup earlier in the session. Slowed down a lot for yellows and didn’t make it through to Q2. Hamilton qualified 8th. Both drivers struggled for pace in the race and finished 8th (HAM) and 10th (BUT).

Mclarens seem to have been exceptionally poor off the line for a few years now, maybe an inability to cope with max fuel loads or getting heat into the tyres instantaneously. Red bull in particular have eviscerated them at most starts in recent times. Ferrari too, although their grid positions have been much less frequently optimal. I have come to dread race starts these days…

No. Maldonado to play skittles with SCH and HUL in fron to him, possibly VET too. ALO will cruise away from the disaster zone wondering where everyone else has gone. BUT in second place, HAM in third. The first lap will end in laughter. Called it.

would not have been the case if he had been allowed to do the same as button did – to pit for fresh wet tyre. could have jumped a few places forward but sam michael chose button as the benchmark instead to counter alonso’s pace when he can’t even beat maldonado’s time. if lewis car had been fitted as button’s he could have easily been up there amongst the top 4 the least..crap!

@boss
Actually Hamilton had the same option, I dont know if he got new tyres, but he just abandoned his last lap. And another thing, the drivers have different race crews, and I dont think it is up to SM or MW to decide those things, so you can hardly blame anyone else but Hamiltons crew for not doing the same as Button, but only if they didnt do the same.

a dry race for tomorrow is not a 100% given, most of the teams were sure about a wet race for silverstone.
anything can happen tomorrow either on a wet or dry track. it is not easy to defend from the front but it is also not easy to come from back to fight for podium.

FIA technical delegate says, “Having examined the engine base torque map of car numbers 01 and 02 it became apparent that the maximum torque output of both engines is significantly less in the mid rpm range than previously seen at other events” and blah blah…